This guide will show you how to easily make a multiplayer game on Rosebud or add multiplayer features to your existing games.
The steps for this change depending on whether you are starting with a multiplayer game from scratch or are working with an existing single-player game, but both approaches will be covered in this guide.
Feel free to read, watch the video, or both!
rosebud_multiplayer_and_leaderboard_guide.mp4
If you don’t already have a game but know you want to make a 3D multiplayer game, I would highly recommend starting with the following 3D Multiplayer template:
3D Multiplayer Template v1 🕹️ Rosebud AI Vibe Code Games
When you open it, you may notice that there are already blocks all over the place or other players in the game. That’s because over time many players have played it and placed blocks. Don’t worry, your version of the game will have a clean slate.
Try opening the game up in two separate tabs or on two separate devices and then finding yourself in game. Also try sending a message in the chat. You can see that all the multiplayer features are working.
Press the button on the bottom right of the screen and/or scroll down to remix this game and create your own copy.
When you do remix, you’ll notice that your game doesn’t have all those blocks everywhere or any players in it. That’s because when you remix the game, behind the scenes, we create a dedicated backend. Think of the backend as the code behind the scenes that powers your game but is running on a server instead of on the devices of your players. Whenever something in your game needs to be the same for every player, it should go in the backend. When something is only for a single player, it goes in the frontend (frontend is just the regular non-multiplayer parts of the game like your inventory or your ability to look around). You don’t meed to understand this though! Just wanted to give a quick explanation for anyone who wants to understand a bit about what is going on.
Since you have a backend dedicated to your project, nothing that happens in the original template’s multiplayer server has any effect on your game.
To see the unique ID of your multiplayer game, switch to the Code Tab and open the instant_db_config.js file.
The instant_db.md is the most important file for multiplayer and is how Rosie knows how to add multiplayer features at all. You can read it if you want but you don’t have to.